The Norse Myths Read online

When Áslaug was grown up, the crew of Ragnarr Shaggy-breeches’ ship happened to put in nearby for supplies, and despite Áslaug’s disguise, they perceived how lovely she was and reported back to Ragnarr. He promptly sent for her, commanding her to appear before him and setting her riddling conditions. Clever Áslaug could see this was her chance to escape from her cruel foster-parents, and, fulfilling Ragnarr’s riddling conditions, she came to his longship. The king promptly offered to marry her, and indeed he made good on his word. On the wedding night, Áslaug strongly suggested to her new husband that they should wait three nights to consummate the marriage, for it was not auspicious to conceive that night. But Ragnarr took no notice of her request – and as a result, their first son Ívarr was born with cartilage instead of bones. He was unable to walk or fight, and so became known thereafter as Ívarr the Boneless. After that, Ragnarr took a little more notice of his wife’s advice, and they soon had a fine crop of sons.

  Ragnarr didn’t know, however, that his wife was not really the daughter of the odious Norwegian peasants. After a while he decided that it might be strategic to marry the daughter of the Swedish king. He went off to Uppsala a-wooing and the match was on the verge of being settled when three birds, who had heard what was going on, flew to Denmark and reported Ragnarr’s double-dealing to his wife – who had inherited her father’s capacity to understand the speech of birds. When Ragnarr returned, nerving himself up to tell Áslaug about his plans, she made clear to him both that she knew what he was up to, and that she was the daughter of the most famous hero of the north, Sigurðr the Dragon-Slayer. To prove the truth of her words, the son that she was carrying would be born with snake-shaped pupils, emblematic of his grandfather’s greatest feat. And so the baby, named Sigurðr Snake-in-the-Eye, came into the world, and no more was heard of Ragnarr’s plans to marry again.

  The king of Sweden was annoyed, both by his daughter’s disappointment, and by the fact that Ragnarr’s two eldest sons by his first wife, Þóra, came harrying in Sweden, and he captured and killed them both. When the news came back to Denmark, it was Áslaug, their stepmother, who rallied her own sons, urging them that ven-geance must be taken for their slain half-brothers, and who led the seaborne invading forces. Ívarr the Boneless was the campaign’s chief strategist, despite his disability. Carried on a shield borne up on four spear-points he commanded the warriors and gained the victory.

  Áslaug, clad in her fishing-net, with her canine companion, ready to appear before Ragnarr Shaggy-breeches. Mårten Eskil Winge (engraving of 1862 painting).

  Ragnarr’s Riddle Solved

  Ragnarr decreed that Áslaug should come to him ‘neither clothed nor naked, neither fasting nor having eaten, neither alone nor with another person’. Being a smart girl, Áslaug draped a fishing-net around her body and let her hair hang loose, licked an onion so that her breath was scented with it, and took the family dog down to the ship with her. Ragnarr was impressed by her acumen and granted her the safe-conduct she asked for. When the dog bit one of the sailors, they strangled him with a bow-string, an early indication that Ragnarr wouldn’t always keep his promises.

  A Magical Cow

  The Swedes’ secret weapon was a magical cow called Síbilja, whose name means ‘Eternal-bellower’. Her magical power was nourished by sacrifice; when she was sent into battle her bellowing induced such panic among the enemy army that they fought among themselves. Síbilja also gored men with her horns. Counter-strategies such as making enough noise in battle to drown out the bellowing didn’t work well, but, in a triumphant climax, Ívarr shot Síbilja through the eye, and she dropped head-first. Then Ívarr catapulted himself on top of her, magically increasing his weight and breaking her back. In a final gesture, he tore off her head. The Swedes, naturally, fled.

  The sons of Ragnarr successfully ravaged England, raided widely across Europe and were all set to attack Rome, a feat thwarted only by a clever cobbler who used his sack of shoes meant for repair. ‘Look!’ he said, emptying his sack. ‘I wore out all these shoes just coming from Rome.’ This well-known folkloric ruse persuaded the brothers that Rome was far too far away to be worth the trouble. Ragnarr himself undertook a last ill-fated raid on England, against his wife’s advice. He was captured by King Ella of Northumbria, who hurled him into his snake-pit. Despite the king’s recitation of a long poem about his many feats, the serpents finally struck to his heart. The snakes thus got him in the end, ironically recalling his first mighty adventure.

  When a messenger brought news of Ragnarr’s shameful death to his sons – and his wife – none of them seemed to react. But the son playing chequers squeezed his gaming-piece so hard that blood spurted from under his nails, the one shaving down the shaft of his spear sliced a chunk of flesh from his finger, and another who was gripping his spear left his hand-print in the wood before the spear snapped in two. Ívarr’s complexion turned from white to red to black in quick succession. The messenger reported this to King Ella, who knew that the brothers’ apparent calm was misleading. Sure enough, they soon came raiding in England and sought Ella out. At first it looked as if the matter could be settled by compensation; Ella granted Ívarr some land, but through the well-known trick of cutting up an ox-hide into thin strips and claiming all the land that could be enclosed by it, Ívarr took enough territory to found London. Infuriated, Ella attacked, was captured and the ‘blood-eagle’ (see page 166) was carved on his back. He died in agony. Ívarr decided to rule over England from now on, and left the kingdom of Denmark to his brothers.

  Ragnarr perishes in King Ella’s snake-pit. A French wood-engraving (c. 1860).

  The Blood-Eagle

  The blood-eagle rite is a legendary punishment, visited on particular enemies. The killers cut the ribs away from the spine, and then drag out the victim’s lungs and arrange them across the back so that they look like wings, as a sacrifice to Óðinn. It’s extremely unlikely that this punishment was ever carried out; the belief seems to originate from the misunderstanding of a verse in which an eagle, as a beast of battle, scores the dead Ella’s back with his talons when feasting on the body. The mighty earl of Orkney, Torf-Einarr, is said to have killed a son of King Haraldr Fair-hair in this way, but these are the only two references in Old Norse tradition.

  Rather like Sigurðr, Ragnarr never surpassed his first major adventure: killing the great serpent encircling Þóra’s chamber. His duplicity in his dealings with his charismatic wife – killing her dog, ignoring her advice about consummating the marriage, and finally planning to marry the Swedish king’s daughter – make him a rather unattractive hero. Ragnarr’s sons, by contrast, listen to their mother’s wisdom and conquer great swathes of territory. In Ívarr we have a new kind of hero, one who is seriously disabled, yet capable of leading an army. He is a master-strategist who uses brains rather than muscles.

  THE MEN OF HRAFNISTA

  One remarkable heroic lineage is that of Ketill hængr, whose nickname means ‘salmon’. Ketill lived with his parents on the island of Hrafnista (modern Ramsta) in Norway and he was a troublesome lad, another ‘coal-biter’. Ketill was no use around the house and argued a lot with his father, Hallbjörn Half-troll, but eventually he came good. Wandering in the northern part of the island one day he encountered a flying dragon, fire spurting from its mouth and eyes. Ketill was used to going fishing in this part of the island, and he thought to himself that he’d never seen a fish quite like this one before. When the dragon attacked him, Ketill boldly cut it in half with his axe, and then told his father that he’d killed a rather large salmon – hence his nickname.

  A late manuscript of Ketils saga hœngs (Ketill’s Saga).

  Ketill also finished off some cannibal giants who were attacking the folk of Hrafnista and had further adventures in the far north. A winter spent with a giant, Brúni, and his family resulted in a love-affair with Hrafnhildr, Brúni’s daughter – and a son, Grímr Shaggy-cheek. Hallbjörn refused to accept Hrafnhildr as a daughter-in-law, however, calling her a
troll (a bit rude from a man whose nickname was ‘Half-troll’) and Hrafnhildr sailed away from Hrafnista, leaving her child behind. Ketill gained some magic arrows and a splendid sword from a Lappish magician, Brúni’s brother. He became famous for troll-slaying and for battling against rogue Vikings, but he never forgot his troll-beloved, and when he married a human wife, he named his daughter Hrafnhildr in her memory.

  Battle between a warrior and a female sea-troll. From the fourteenth-century Icelandic manuscript Flateyjarbók.

  Grímr took over Hrafnista when his father died. He was set to marry the daughter of a powerful lord when, seven nights before the wedding, she vanished. Evidence pointed to the involvement of the girl’s stepmother, a woman originating from the far north, and suspected of having magical powers. Grímr journeyed there, and overcame several trollwomen and giants. Severely injured, he reluctantly accepted help from an extremely ugly trollwoman; her price for healing him was that he should kiss her, and finally, that they should share a bed. Grímr reluctantly consented, but he awakened in the morning to find that the hideous trollwoman, now freed from enchantment, was none other than his beloved Lofthæna, his missing fiancée. The reunited couple married and had a son: Arrow-Oddr.

  Oddr inherited his grandfather’s magic arrows, and had a long and eventful life. In his youth, a wandering seeress prophesied that, however far he might roam in his 300-year-long lifespan, his death would be caused by the head of his horse, Faxi. Oddr and his foster-brother rode the horse to a deserted valley, dug a deep pit and buried the creature alive. Thereafter Oddr had any number of adventures, fighting Vikings, gaining a magic shirt of invulnerability from an Irish princess, converting to Christianity and winning the great battle of Sámsey against the twelve berserk brothers, led by Angantýr. Finally Oddr decided to revisit the haunts of his youth and came to the mound where the horse was buried. On top of it lay a horse’s head, still covered with skin. Oddr, sure that he had long outlived the seeress’s prophecy, prodded the head with his spear, tipping it over. Out from beneath it crawled an adder; it struck at Oddr, fastening its fangs in his foot. Oddr’s leg swelled and turned black all the way up to his thigh, so he knew that his days were done. His men carried him down to the shore where he recited a long poem recounting his many glorious deeds. Then he died and his men burned his body on his ship. The line of the Hrafnista-men did not end there, however, for Hrafnhildr, Ketill’s daughter, was the foremother of many famous men, including some of the Icelandic settlers who would later tell their ancestors’ stories.

  TWELVE BERSERK BROTHERS ON AN ISLAND

  Oddr’s greatest feat perhaps was the mighty battle he undertook, along with his great friend Hjálmarr, on the island of Sámsey (Samsø, between Sweden and Denmark). Angantýr and his eleven brothers were the sons of a great chieftain, and the second son, Hjörvarðr, was so proud of his reputation for raiding and harrying that he decided he would wed the daughter of the King of Sweden. The brothers all accompanied him to Uppsala on his wooing journey, and Hjörvarðr requested the princess’s hand. But Hjálmarr the wise, who had long served the Swedish king, spoke up and asked if he might marry the lovely princess Ingibjörg. The king asked Ingibjörg to choose which suitor she preferred, and she declared for Hjálmarr, a man of good reputation, against the piratical Hjörvarðr and his berserkir brothers. Hjörvarðr promptly challenged Hjálmarr to a battle; the victor would marry Ingibjörg.

  Berserker warriors from the Lewis Chessmen set, gnashing their shields.

  Berserkir

  Berserkir (berserkers) were a particular kind of warrior who would howl and bite their shields before battle. They may have worn bear-skins (hence their name, ‘bear-shirts’ – another term for them is úlfheðnar or ‘wolf-pelts’), but the word berserkir may equally mean ‘bare-shirts’, fighters who wore no armour. In battle they became frenzied, lashing out without regard for their own safety. It’s been suggested that they may have ingested some kind of hallucinogen to stimulate the battle-madness. In the sagas berserkers form anti-social gangs, going from household to household, threatening to rape the women unless someone is prepared to meet their leader in single combat. In one saga, the hero disposes of a berserk, who is gnashing his shield prior to fighting, by heaving the shield smartly upwards and thus tearing off his enemy’s jaw!

  The brothers made their way to Sámsey where Hjálmarr and his friend Arrow-Oddr were waiting for them. Angantýr had had a foreboding dream about the battle, but his father had bolstered his courage by giving him a magic sword, Tyrfingr, forged by dwarfs, and guaranteed to bring victory. Hjálmarr was gloomy about his chances when he saw the brothers land on the island and prophesied that they would all be guests of Óðinn in Valhöll come the evening. Oddr rallied his friend and battle was joined.

  The berserk-fit came over the brothers; they howled and gnashed at their shields. Hjálmarr decided to take on Angantýr and his magic sword, which shone like a sun-beam, while Oddr, wearing the enchanted shirt that the Irish princess had woven for him, fought against the rest.

  Oddr slew all eleven brothers, but when he rejoined Hjálmarr, he found that although his friend had indeed killed Angantýr, he’d sustained sixteen wounds and was dying. Hjálmarr lamented his destiny, regretting that he, who owned five whole estates at home in Sweden, now lay dying on Sámsey. Never again would he hear the beautiful singing of the women of Uppsala, nor hold Ingibjörg in his arms. He gave Oddr a ring to take to the princess, asking him to tell her how heroically he had fallen. In his last verse, Hjálmarr faced up to his fate:

  A raven flies from the high tree;

  the eagle flies along in company;

  I gave the eagle his last meal,

  he’ll now be tasting my blood.

  HJÁLMARR’S DEATH-SONG, V. 10

  So Hjálmarr died; Oddr bore the news – and Hjálmarr’s corpse – home to Sweden, where Ingibjörg too died of grief. Angantýr and his brothers were all entombed in burial mounds on Sámsey – along with the valuable sword, Tyrfingr.

  HERVÖR RECOVERS THE SWORD

  Angantýr had left behind a daughter, born posthumously, called Hervör. She grew up a bold and brave girl, refusing to sew or weave, for she preferred sword-play and spear-throwing. Her grandfather had tried to discipline her, but whenever she was rebuked she would run off into the forest and waylay men to steal their money. After some thralls insulted her, claiming that her father was a low-born man, Hervör learned the truth of her father’s identity from her mother. She abandoned female clothing, joined a Viking crew and sailed for Sámsey.

  Despite warnings that the island is an uncanny place, Hervör lands alone on the island and makes her way to the burial mounds. Here she invokes her father and uncles by name, demanding that Angantýr hand over the famous sword. The burial mounds, with eerie flames burning before them, yawn open and the dead men stand at their doors. Angantýr at first denies that he has the sword, then warns that a curse lies upon it – Hervör’s descendants will slay one another with it – but at last he grudgingly hands it over, observing:

  Young girl, I declare you’re not like most men,

  hanging around mounds by night,

  with an engraved spear and in metal of the Goths [armour],

  a helmet and corslet before the hall-doors.

  WAKING OF ANGANTÝR, V. 21

  And truly Hervör is not like most men, nor most women either. Seizing the sword from the dead man’s hands, she returns triumphantly to her ship where, for a good while, she continues her career as a Viking, raiding widely around the Baltic Sea. Hervör does eventually marry and has two sons, one named Angantýr, after her father, and the other Heiðrekr. Heiðrekr kills his brother in a sort of accident and is exiled; his mother gives him Tyrfingr as a gift.

  Heiðrekr is shrewd and quick to outwit his enemies, though he does as much evil as good. He marries the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople, and has a daughter, also called Hervör. King Heiðrekr has an enemy, a wise man called Gestumblindi, an
d the king summons him to court. Gestumblindi fears that the king means him harm, and so he is very relieved when a mysterious man arrives at his home and offers to go to the king in his place. The false Gestumblindi engages in a riddle-contest with Heiðrekr and finally confounds the king by asking the killer question, ‘What did Óðinn whisper into Baldr’s ear as he lay on the funeral pyre?’ Heiðrekr, realizing that his opponent can be none other than the god himself, draws Tyrfingr and lunges at him. But Óðinn turns himself into a falcon, just finding time to curse Heiðrekr with meeting death at the hands of ‘the worst of thralls’. Tyrfingr slices the falcon’s tail-feathers (which is why falcons are short-tailed), but the god makes good his escape. And sure enough, soon afterwards, Heiðrekr is slain without honour in his bed by a cabal of well-born thralls whom he had captured and enslaved during his expeditions in the British Isles. The rest of the saga relates the continuing role of Tyrfingr in the fate of the dynasty and incorporates the famous battle of the Goths and Huns, in which Heiðrekr’s two sons find themselves fighting on opposing sides. One does indeed slay the other with the accursed sword.

  Gestumblindi’s Riddles

  The riddles of the fake Gestumblindi are rather mixed. Some are traditional: ‘What did I drink yesterday that was neither water nor wine nor ale nor any kind of food?’ (Answer: the morning dew.) Another is: ‘What is that creature that has eight legs and four eyes and has its knees above its belly?’ (Answer – of course – a spider.) Some are very obscure; the answer to one is: ‘a dead horse on an ice-floe drifting down a river, with a serpent on the corpse’ – not an easy one to guess. Tolkien got his inspiration for Bilbo’s riddle-contest with Gollum in The Hobbit from this saga, though Bilbo’s unanswerable question: ‘What have I got in my pocket?’ is rather different from the cosmic question about Baldr with which Óðinn concludes the contest.